News Desk Archives - Page 348 of 401

Activism Poses Dilemmas for Social Media Sites

Two days after using Flickr to display photos of police officers from Egypt’s feared state security force,

Hossam el-Hamalawy watched in disbelief as they vanished, one by one, from the popular social networking site, which he had been using since 2008.

“I thought I was being hacked,” said El-Hamalawy, a prominent Egyptian blogger and human rights activist

who had uploaded the headshots of the police from CDs found by activists early this month at the State Security Police headquarters in Nasr City.

TV Program “App Wars” Break Out on iPad

The iPad, which went on sale a year ago, is becoming the latest battleground in a long-running fight

over how TV programs will be delivered in the digital age, and who will deliver them.

Last week, Time Warner Cable abruptly removed a dozen channels from an iPad app

after lawyers for four major content providers convened at a Manhattan courthouse to sue the distributor.

Viacom, Fox Cable Networks, Scripps Networks and Discovery Communications were minutes away from filing their legal paperwork

BP, Reliance in Big India Oil Deal

The British oil giant BP has said it would pay $7.2 billion to buy into India’s fast-growing oil and gas industry.

It is yet another big deal for BP, as it seeks to recover from the after-shocks of last year’s Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

BP will take a 30 percent stake in 23 oil and gas fields operated by Reliance Industries, India’s largest private company.

Reliance will receive an additional $1.8 billion if the companies find more oil and gas than expected.

Japan Seafood Exports Latest Radiation Victim

Tokyo Electric Power Company began dumping more than 11,000 tons of radioactive water

into the Pacific Ocean from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant on Monday,

mostly to make room in storage containers for increasing amounts of far more contaminated runoff.

The water, most of it to be released over two days, contains about 100 times the legal limit of radiation, the company, commonly known as TEPCO, said.

The more contaminated water has about 10,000 times the legal limit.

China Fights Inflation By Restructuring Economy

China consumer prices rose sharply in February, suggesting government might have a difficult time curbing inflation this year.

The consumer price index, the nation’s main gauge of inflation, rose 4.9 percent in February from the same month a year ago,
according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

That jump was slightly above economists’ estimates and identical to the rise in January.

Food prices alone rose 11 percent in February, though analysts say they believe that jump may have been affected by the Chinese New Year holiday.

US Immigration Laws Drive Away Job-Creating “Foreigners”

NBC’s Tom Brokaw visited Silicon Valley last winter to meet immigrant entrepreneurs.

At Microsoft’s Mountain View campus, he met with a dozen of them.

More than half said that they might be forced to return to their home countries.

That’s because they have the same visa issues that Kunal Bahl had.

Unable to get a visa that would allow him to start a company after he graduated from Wharton in 2007, Kunal returned home to India.

In February 2010, he started SnapDeal—India’s Groupon.

Inspector General: US Bailout Huge Win for Wall St vs Main Street

Two and a half years ago, Congress passed the legislation that bailed out America’s banks, especially its largest, the infamous “Too-Big-To-Fail”

The Obama regime typically declared its mission accomplished, calling the program remarkably effective “by any objective measure.”

On his last day as the Special Inspector General of the bailout program,

Neil Barofsky wrote in the New York Times:

“I regret to say that I strongly disagree.

Radioactivity Expanding Quickly in Japan Land, Seawater

A long-lasting radioactive element has been measured at levels that pose a long-term danger

at one spot 25 miles from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant,

raising questions about whether Japan’s evacuation zone should be expanded,

and whether the land might need to be abandoned.

The isotope, cesium 137, was measured in one village by the International Atomic Energy Agency

at a level exceeding the standard that the Soviet Union used as a gauge to recommend abandoning land surrounding the Chernobyl reactor,

India Infrastructure Magnate Pledges $340 Million To Educate The Poor

GMR Group chairman Grandhi Mallikarjuna Rao, a first-generation entrepreneur hailing from Srikakulam in Andhra Pradesh,

this week pledged $340 million (Rs 1,540 crore), which is equivalent to his personal share in the infrastructure conglomerate,

to improve education among the undeserved sections of the society.

The move came the same day Warren Buffet, the billionaire chairman of Berkshire Hathaway,

arrived on his maiden trip to India to promote philanthropy among the the country’s richest.

German Electoral Earthquake: Rise of the Greens

The equation seems simple.

A nuclear disaster in Japan combined with widespread skepticism of atomic energy in Germany

equals record-setting election successes for the anti-nuclear Green Party in two state elections last Sunday.
The story line is certainly tempting.

Germany has, after all, reacted with notable concern to the ongoing calamity at the Fukushima nuclear facility on Japan’s east coast.